FM Dismisses Talks with EU Officials on Recent Unrests in Iran

TEHRAN (defapress)- Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif rejected Israeli media reports claiming that the EU is due to invite him for talks on the recent protests and unrest in Iran, stressing that any negotiations will focus on the 2015 nuclear deal.

News ID: 67982

Date: 08 January 2018 - 13:40

"During the (recent) talks, we agreed to hold consultations between Iran and three EU members (France, Britain and Germany) on the nuclear deal given the importance of the deal and the US destructive policies (against it)," Zarif said on the sidelines of a security conference in Tehran on Monday.

He underlined that the Israeli media reports claiming that the EU members will hold talks with him about the recent unrests in Iran are "baseless".

Zarif, meantime, underscored that the people in Iran, unlike certain regional states which are the US allies, are free to protest peacefully and criticize the government, which is different from violence and riots.

His remarks came after Germany's Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel during a televised broadcast on ZDF said that "together with EU's Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini, we agreed to invite the Iranian foreign minister, if possible next week".

While noting that Germany supports freedom of demonstration, Gabriel stressed that Berlin will not follow the lead of US President Donald Trump, who vowed to support protesters in Iran.

Germany and France have "warned against attempts at instrumentalizing the domestic conflicts in Iran," he added.

On Friday, the UN Security Council finally gave into a US push for a meeting on the latest events inside Iran which resulted in the council’s veto wielders and Washington’s own allies using the debate to criticize the White House for involving the council in Iran’s domestic affairs.